1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid consumption apparatus.
2. Related Art
An inkjet printer (hereinafter simply referred to as a printer) is known as an example of a liquid consumption apparatus. In a printer, ink, which is an example of a liquid, is contained in an ink tank, which is an example of a liquid container, and printing can be performed by injecting ink from a printing head onto a printing medium such as printing paper. In such a printer, when ink has been consumed and the ink to be injected has run out, an idle injection state occurs. To avoid such a problem, there is a proposal of a printer that performs remaining ink amount management by simulatively counting the amount of the used ink, using a so-called ink dot count method, and that issues a warning indicating that ink has run out, when the count value exceeds a value that corresponds to the capacity of the ink tank (e.g., JP-A-2004-74694).
The printer disclosed in JP-A-2004-74694 displays information to ask the user whether or not the ink tank has been replaced if the open/close cover has been left open for five or more seconds. After the user replaces the empty ink tank with an ink tank that is filled with ink, when the user inputs information indicating that the ink tank has been replaced in response to the information thus displayed, reset processing is executed, which is the processing of resetting the count value corresponding to the amount of ink used.
The printer disclosed in JP-A-2004-74694 is premised on replacement of the ink tank, and no consideration is given to a configuration with which the ink tank, which is fixed to the printer, can be refilled with ink by the user. With a configuration in which the ink tank is designed to be replaced, there is no variation in the initial amount of the ink in the ink tank, and therefore, in the remaining ink amount management, no initial difference occurs between the count value and the actual amount of ink used. In contrast, with a configuration in which the ink tank is designed to be refilled with ink by the user, it is likely that, in ink remaining amount management, the count value and the actual amount of ink used differ from each other because of the user refilling the ink tank with ink before the printer issues a warning indicating that the ink has run out, or because of variations in the initial amount of ink in the ink tank that has been refilled with ink by the user. As a result, although there is ink in the ink tank, there is concern that the printer erroneously issues a warning indicating that ink has run out based on the count value, and the user is inconvenienced.
In addition, the printer disclosed in JP-A-2004-74694 is not provided with a sensor that detects a decrease in the amount of ink remaining in the ink tank. Therefore, there is concern that ink runs out before the printer issues a warning indicating that the ink is running out, and the idle injection state occurs.